The book is Sean Lusk’s debut full length novel, his next, No
Place for Us, is set for release on February 18,, 2027 and will definitely
be on my reading list.
In The Second Sight, Zachary is the son of Abel Cloudesley,
a maker of custom clocks in 1700s England. Zachary’s mother Alice died during his
birth. The aftermath of her death leaves Abel blaming his desire for a child
for the death of the only woman he ever loved. His late wife’s Aunt Frances
also blames him.
Because Abel hasn’t a clue how to raise a child Frances insists
he turn the baby over to her to raise. She is a childless, monied, eccentric, and controlling widow. Abel refuses and hires a wet nurse named Grace with a new child of her
own to nurse him. Grace and her daughter will later move into Abel’s home to take
care of Zachary. This arrangement works well for a period of time, but then one
day Zachary, who loves to play in his father’s workshop, is injured losing an
eye. During a visit by Frances after the injury a loud argument breaks out
between Abel, Frances, and Grace over where it would be best to raise him. In
the midst of the argument something strange happens, Zachary screams out “stop”
silencing them all. Zachary, they will discover is “gifted,” and they will soon
also discover he is clairvoyant.
Abel will eventually relent and allow Frances to take the
child to Blair House, her country estate, with the understanding that she also takes
Grace (& daughter) to care for him. Zachary will excel at Blair House. In
the meantime, Frances will secretly arrange to get rid of Abel by having him
sent to Constantinople to invent and construct a chess-playing robot for the Sultan
of the Ottoman Empire – in reality the robot is an undercover spying operation like
a Trojan Horse.
Abel is reluctant but forced to agree to the spying operation. He’s caught by the Sultan and imprisoned in the Topkapi Palace for years, condemned to create a myriad of inventions for the Sultan, some for entertainment, some for violence. When Zachary turns fifteen, he runs away from Blair House making his way to Constantinople to try to free his father.
The Topkapi Palace
intrigues throughout this section of the book are vivid and fascinating to me
because I was there on vacation several years ago, and am an avid reader
of Orhan Pamuk novels many of which are set in Constantinople and in this time
period – the most relevant being The White Castle and My Name is Red. The gifted children subplot also brings to mind another of my favorite books, Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie.
In The Second Sight the individual stories of the major characters are
fascinating and could stand alone as novels, their collective actions are
compelling. Not the least of these is the character Tom. He enters the story as
a young worker in Abel’s workshop. He invents the “golden eye” used by Zachary to
substitute for the one in the accident, and which accounts for the title of the
book.
Recommendation: I could supply multiple spoilers here, but I’m not going to. Strongly recommended.
